After the Pictures
by Bella Duveen79
Summary: What if Pike's date with Sylvia had gone better after they ran out of petrol in a country lane on the way home?


**After The Pictures**

He didn't really notice her at first. The new Staff Car was far more interesting than any boring conversation Mr Mainwaring was having in the office, and it was only later when they all came out that he did. Hodges made some stupid remark about it – like he'd get one – and following along after him came a girl Pike hadn't seen before.

She was ATS, he'd guess, with copper coloured curls peaking from under her cap, and a slim, nice figure, from what he could see, and then she turned around to take a look at the car too. She smiled, and said something to Hodges, who shook his head slightly as if to say the world had gone mad.

'Young girl like you driving!' he said to his niece. 'Never heard anything like it!'

Hodges turned back to Mainwaring then, pointing out just what he thought Mainwaring's position entitled him to, and soon after, the two of them left. As they did, Pike kept his gaze on her, dropping it slightly as he noticed the way her skirt clung to her as she walked. Suddenly feeling quite hot, he tried to be sensible about this – he didn't even know her name, and why did she leave with Hodges, of all people? But there were things to sort out first. Like was he going to be allowed in that car?

Finally, after much wrangling over positions and arguments over who looked most important, Pike got his chance to ask.

'Uncle Arthur?' he said, trying – and failing – to sound nonchalant. 'Who was that girl with Mr Hodges?'

'Oh, that was his niece,' Wilson caught his eye and smiled. 'Sylvia. Such a pretty name…'

'Yeah, s'pose it is.' That came out more sharply than he'd intended, and his Uncle didn't miss the brief flash of warning in the younger man's eyes. He nodded in understanding.

'And I'm sure she's a very nice girl. Now, I'll see you at home later, Mr Mainwaring wanted to go over some plans for the exercise…'

Pike nodded, and was just about to head home himself when Jones caught up with him.

''Ere, Pikey?' he asked. 'I was just asking some of the boys if they wanted to go over to that café across the way for a drink – all that business with the Staff Car got me a bit dry, but Mr Godfrey, he said he had to get home 'cause of his sister's leg, she had a fall the other day, you know, and that's why he was late on parade, 'cause he had to take her to the clinic, and Mr Frazer, he said he wasn't paying that sort of money for any old milkshake, so I thought to myself…'

'Yes, OK, Mr Jones,' Pike finished for him. 'I like their raspberryade…' The two men made their way across the street, and gratefully downed a couple of drinks.

'Another raspberryade, please Nora,' Pike said then, setting his glass down on the counter. Unfortunately, the price had gone up, but he took it anyway, and went to sit back down.

'Did you have Staff Cars in the Sudan, Mr Jones?'

'No,' he replied, taking a hearty slurp at the syrupy concoction in his glass. 'We had a Staff Camel. It didn't have a horn or windscreen wipers or anything though…'

Knowing that this wasn't likely to be a short story, Pike settled himself more comfortably, and just then, heard the shop bell as someone came in.

'Evening,' she said, flashing a smile over at them and perching on the stool opposite. It made her skirt tighten and ride up slightly. Forgetting the story of the Staff Camel, Pike couldn't believe his luck – he'd never expected to see her again, and attempted to ignore the sudden blush that lit his cheeks as she caught his eye.

'Aren't you with that Home Guard lot over at the church?' she asked, her eyes sparkling a little more as she looked at him. She'd seen him earlier, and wondered what he was doing with all those old men, and then she'd looked again. Just one brief glance back, just as they were leaving, but she noticed him.

'Yeah…' Pike couldn't help but smile at her, and knew he probably looked like an idiot, but that didn't matter right now. '…you were with the Warden. Sylvia.'

'That's right!' Sylvia exclaimed, feeling quite giddy all of sudden that he knew her name. 'How did you know?'

Trying to impress her, Pike explained that his Uncle had told him, and was somewhat taken aback by her reply…but hadn't he warned him off her himself?

Leaning forward then, Sylvia ordered her drink, and was pleasantly surprised when the young man next to her offered to pay for it. Her gaze lingered on him again…what was he doing here? There weren't many nice looking young men out of the Forces left…and he'd just said he didn't have a girlfriend…

'Why aren't you a real soldier?' she asked then, her dark brown eyes on his grey ones.

'What do you mean? I am a real soldier,' Pike replied, slightly uncomfortable. It wasn't his fault they didn't take him, was it? Even if he still felt guilty about it sometimes.

'Yes, we're all real soldiers,' Jones confirmed, although that probably wasn't helping his case right now.

'No, I mean why aren't you in the real Army?'

'Well, I'm knocking on a bit…'

'I didn't mean you!' Sylvia smiled.

'I've got funny blood,' Pike explained, and noticed her eyes widen in surprise. 'Not one in a million like me, and if I got wounded or anything, they wouldn't have anything to transfuse me with.'

'Fancy!' Sylvia hadn't heard of it, but she'd seen field hospitals set up on exercise and doubted their ability to cope with anything too unusual. Her gaze stayed fixed on him, and pushed him to impress her further, anything to keep her looking at him like that.

'I'm waiting to be called up though. Secret Service.' _Where had that come from?_

'Does Mr Mainwaring know you're going into the Secret Service, Pikey?' Oh. He'd forgotten about him.

'No, Mr Jones…' Pike muttered, hoping against hope that the old boy would understand – and preferably leave before he said anything else. No such luck.

'Well, you'll have to give your notice in,' he continued. 'You can't just turn up one evening and say 'Goodbye Captain Mainwaring, I'm off to the Secret Service'. And there's the Bank to consider…'

He had to tell him in the end. He didn't like turning poor Mr Jones out into the street, but some things were more important, and keeping a pretty girl's attention was one of them.

Suddenly on their own, Sylvia took another sip of her drink, and felt brave enough to share something she'd been thinking about since she sat down. It might not be what most girls noticed first, but she did.

'You've got smashing eyebrows!' she said, a rather adoring smile on her face. She wasn't usually so dizzy around men – what was going on?

'You what?' She was making him blush again. Sylvia grinned at Pike's attempts to look at his own eyebrows, before reaching into her handbag and retrieving a small mirror. Handing it to him, she watched as he looked at them, and thought he looked rather like Tyrone Power, or maybe Robert Taylor.

'I like Tyrone Power,' he replied, handing it back.

'Do you go to the Pictures much?' she asked then, expecting to have a chat about the latest films they'd seen.

'Yeah, quite a lot,' Pike continued. 'We're going tomorrow in Eastgate.'

If she hadn't been interested – even falling – before, Sylvia certainly was now. She loved a man who could take charge…

'You don't half sweep a girl off her feet!' she exclaimed in excitement. 'What time shall I meet you?'

For a moment, Pike didn't quite know what had happened there. 'Only my Uncle and…' He felt the force of her gaze on him, and saw her smile, and made a decision he hadn't been expecting just now. 'Tomorrow evening, half past six, outside the church…'

'Cheers,' Sylvia murmured in response, too pleased to notice he seemed slightly unsure. It wasn't that he didn't want to go with her, or wouldn't have asked her…he just didn't expect to do it then, and the nerves suddenly kicked in as he realised what he'd done.

The following evening's parade dragged – how long did it take to hand out a few armbands, for goodness sake? He knew he should have been listening, but Pike found himself checking his watch every few minutes as soon as six o' clock came round, earning himself a glare from Captain Mainwaring when he asked if he was going to be long. _What if she didn't turn up? And what if she did? Why was this girl getting him so nervous?_

Then there was the matter of paying for it. Having borrowed the necessary, and a bit more, he was both relieved and still rather anxious as Sylvia walked over to him.

'Blimey, he does go on a bit!' she said, having observed the whole armband business from the gate.

'Yeah, well, he's not so bad really,' Pike replied. 'We better get going, we'll miss the bus to Eastgate.' _Was he meant to hold her hand now? Or was it too soon?_ He hadn't come to a conclusion when he noticed Sylvia looking over at the car.

'Is that the new Staff Car you were on about?' she asked, an excited sparkle in her voice. 'I drive one of these at the Unit…are you in charge of it?'

She looked so impressed. _It wouldn't really matter, would it..? _'Yeah, sort of…'

He wasn't expecting her get in to take a closer look, and really wasn't expecting her to well…get him in there with her, although that was nice, even if he was worried about the trouble he'd get into if anyone came out. Worrying about that, and missing the bus conspired to make him more wound up than he needed to be, and she looked quite upset when he told her to turn it off.

Sylvia's eyes flickered over to him, her hands back in her lap. _It wouldn't matter if he was in charge of it, would it? And boys were often easily persuaded…_

'You know what?' she said then, a little pout on her face. 'I'm disappointed in you.' She wasn't - she just didn't want to take the bus when it was possible to have so much more fun in a car. Thinking he'd lost his chance, it only took a little more to at least partly convince Pike that it would be fine – they'd be back in plenty of time…and it was exciting. She couldn't keep her hands to herself all the way there, either.

Sitting next to Sylvia in the dark caused an ongoing battle between nerves and instinct. Pike knew she wanted him to kiss her, and he wanted to kiss her…and she still couldn't keep her hands to herself. He looked down, hot and nervous as her hand slid gently down to his knee, wanting her stop and carry on at the same time…but she _really_ couldn't go up…not now…

Feeling the same scratchy serge that her own uniform was made from under her fingertips had never been so enticing, and Sylvia was finding it hard to hold back from just launching herself at him for a kiss anyway. She wondered if being close to her was affecting him like it was affecting her, and spent the entire film hoping to feel his arm around her like Robert Taylor was demonstrating on screen, but she never did. She thought he would, just after that older lady behind them screamed, but no. _Didn't he want to?_ By the time the film was halfway through, Sylvia was starting to worry. She'd done everything right, hadn't she? Why didn't it work? Maybe he hadn't really wanted to ask her after all…maybe he didn't like her…

Reluctantly, Sylvia spent the remainder of the film with her hands demurely in her lap. When she took her hand away, Pike noticed that his knee felt cold. He really wasn't sure what to do now. Maybe she'd changed her mind and didn't want him to kiss her any more. And even if she did, what if he wasn't much good? She'd probably kissed more people than he had, even if he had been engaged for a couple of hours. Either way, she didn't seem so happy on the way back.

'Good having my car to drive in, innit?' Pike asked on the way back, hoping to cheer her up a bit.

'Would be if I wasn't so hungry.' Her tone was flat, disappointed. _He didn't really want to take you out, did he…._Sylvia concluded, but as they suddenly ground to a halt in the quiet country lane, decided to give it one last try. Unfortunately, her efforts were all it took to send Pike's frayed nerves over the edge, and he came up with some ridiculous accusation that she'd planned the whole thing. He didn't mean it, but somehow, he was hurt and she was hurt, and they said things neither should have said, so it was the strangest feeling when she still wanted to drag him off to that haystack. It didn't stop her feeling sulky and emotional though, or making him push them back.

It wasn't a good plan, but it was all they had, or at least, until it grew dark and started to rain. The Staff Car wasn't made for all weather travel, and was open and exposed to the elements. The first drops on the windscreen were enough for Sylvia to start feeling guilty, about two miles later, and she turned round.

'Frank? Wait. We can't go on in this.'

'No.' Still none too happy with her, Pike came round and folded his arms petulantly. 'We'll get all wet.' They were silent for a moment, and then Pike had an idea.

'You'll need to help push, just for a bit. There's this old barn we stayed in once on exercise about half a mile up the road. We'll just have to stay there or we'll catch our death.'

'Whose is it?'

'Dunno, but he let us stay. Just while it's raining.'

Nodding, Sylvia agreed. They didn't really have much choice, and could move the car a bit more easily with both of them pushing. It didn't mean they weren't wet by the time they got there though, and as they stepped inside, they could feel the rain dripping from them on to the dry, warped floorboards. There was a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and switching it on, the barn was illuminated in a dim glow that shone on tightly packed hay bales in the corner. The car was dragged in under an overhanging roof as the rain grew heavier, and then the young man and woman collapsed on the nearest bale they could find.

They couldn't speak for a few moments. Both were tired, and hungry, and increasingly worried about what would happen when they got home. Slowly, Sylvia reached up and pulled her damp cap off. Her hair shone, even in the dim light, and the curls at her collar were wet.

'Your hair's wet too,' she said then. 'Best take yours off,' she continued, indicating Pike's own cap. 'Didn't your Mum tell you that's how you catch cold?'

In spite of himself, Pike smiled at that. 'Yeah – loads of times.' He pulled it off, and Sylvia noticed his hair for the first time. Black, with an awful lot of Brylcreem…but it looked nice.

'She…always goes on about us sitting around in wet clothes too,' he continued, looking down at a knot in the wood. 'Says that how you get Pleurisy.'

'Well, yeah,' Sylvia had to agree. 'You can.'

She fiddled with a couple of buttons on her jacket, suddenly shy. 'So…d'you mind if I take this off? It's soaked right through.'

'No, not at all,' Pike replied, trying to focus on her well-being more than anything else, and then following every movement of her fingers as she unbuttoned it and slid it off.

'Not much point wearing a tie now, either,' she continued, pulling it loose and over her head. She loosened the top two buttons of her blouse too, and Pike felt his breathing grow erratic and the weird tingly feeling in the pit of his stomach she'd given him every time she caught his eye grew more intense and threatened to spread.

'What about your jacket?' Sylvia asked then, brushing a hand self-consciously through her hair and looking away. 'That's wet too, not to mention that scarf.'

Pike nodded. It did get heavy when it was wet, and he pulled it free, placing it alongside him on the floor. She kept her eyes fixed on her fingernails as he unbuttoned his own jacket, heat burning up her cheeks.

'There – that better?' he asked, aware of every crease and fold on her blouse, which was slightly sticking to her in places. So was his shirt. She noticed that too.

'Yeah, a bit.' Sylvia shifted position, making a couple of buttons lower down pull tight. 'Cold though.'

'Yeah.' Quiet again, they shuffled a little closer.

'We saw this film about troops in Norway once…' Pike continued, looking down at Sylvia's hand almost touching his. 'And…they were out in the snow, and they made igloos and had snowshoes and stuff, and then they said how important it was not to get hypothermia, 'cause out there, you'd die in about half an hour.'

Sylvia smiled. 'Don't think we're going to get hypothermia!'

'No, we won't get hypothermia!' The combination of making her happy again and needing to look after her encouraged him, and tentatively at first, Pike stroked his hand over her back, letting it rest on her shoulder, pulling her close.

'Promise?' Sylvia was suddenly breathless. She hadn't expected it to feel quite like this earlier, and bit her lip as she saw his glance stray down to the increasing rise and fall of her chest.

'Yeah.' He'd never wanted to kiss a girl so much. Raising his eyes to meet hers, they leaned in towards each other, lips meeting in a shy, self-conscious kiss that grew steadily deeper and hungrier. Sylvia turned to run her other hand over his back, and it was some moments before they pulled back, slightly dazed, hair a little less perfect and breathing hard.

'You did want to kiss me then,' she finished, pushing some curls back behind her ear.

'And you wanted me to!' That was really all took for the cocky confidence that often got him in trouble to come back.

'Yeah…' She leaned back in, but then felt herself being pushed back. Instinct was at work now, and somehow they knew where they needed to be. The straw underneath her was a little uncomfortable as she was pressed further into it, with the skin on her back exposed where her blouse had come free from her waist.

Looking down at her, copper curls messy and intertwined with a few strands of hay, all Pike could think of was how pretty – no, beautiful – she looked right now, and how much he wanted her. He wasn't sure if he could do this, but couldn't help but trace the line of her buttons down from where they met just above her breasts.

'Sylvia?' Just saying her name made the insistent tightness at his buckle more intense. It had done all evening. There was surely no way she didn't notice it now, although the taut fabric of her skirt provided some protection. Having said that, he wanted that skirt up around her waist, and preferably off.

'Yeah?' Her eyes opened slowly, and she was surprised to see his usually pale ones as dark as slate.

'You need to tell me to stop, if you want…' Talking, thinking even, was increasingly difficult. Sylvia watched as the other buttons were loosened and felt her blouse slip off to the side, exposing a sturdy Playtex construction with integral girdle that really wasn't meant to be attractive, but it was now.

Their eyes met then. This was unchartered territory, and they knew several lines were crossed, but had gone too far to consider stopping now. Needing to touch and be touched, they pulled at their shirts where they were still on, and Sylvia heard his breathing grow rapid and her own murmured moans as the straps were slid from her shoulders.

Almost without thinking, her hand slipped lower as she was pushed back again, looking for a pocket and…_yeah, that's it…_

'Oh, Sylvia…' That moan was all the confirmation she needed. 'You…can't do that…right now…'

'Why?' There was no doubt he liked it, and if she was honest, she needed him to do a little exploring further down too…

Blushing hard, Pike attempted to think more clearly, although the whereabouts of her hand and half exposed bust was making that virtually impossible.

''Cause it's…if you don't stop…now…sort of…you know…' _Did she know? Maybe she didn't?_

'Oh…' She knew. 'Um…well…' Her hands were on his belt then, and it was only a loud creak from the door that stopped them as someone came in.

'Get down!' Pike said sharply, and they ducked behind a bale. It was too late though, and the old farmer, dragging a cow, had noticed them.

''Ere! What's your game?' There was a pause, some sudden readjustments, and, with rather guilty looks on their faces, the two of them emerged.

'Um…hello!' This wasn't going to be easy to explain.

'We broke down!' Sylvia managed, attempting a bright smile. 'That's our car. Out there.'

'Oh. I see.' The farmer still looked rather taken aback.

'Yeah, and we didn't have any petrol,' Pike finished, also grinning nervously. 'And it was raining.'

'So I see. Well…' he paused, considering. 'This cow here's in calf…' At that he shot a look over at Sylvia. '…an' the vet's coming any minute now…'

'You don't have any petrol, do you?' Sylvia asked then. 'We've got some money!'

The farmer took a deep breath. 'Yeah, as it 'appens…no, never mind, son. Put your money away…I dunno, well, s'pose we was all young once…but don't you come back, you 'ear! 'Old that,' he muttered, handing Pike the rope round the cow's neck. 'I'll get you some…now get that girl o' yours home before her Dad has you shot…'

With the car filled, they were home in minutes, parking it up outside the church as if nothing had happened, but so much had. His Uncle knew something was up the following day, with the little conversation they had, but he knew he wouldn't say anything. Sylvia had made it back home safe and sound too, and a couple of days later sent a letter from Catterick, letting Pike know she was back on camp, and that maybe, if he wanted, they could go to the Pictures again sometime…

**Author's note –** If any BBT fanfic readers are wondering what on Earth this is all about, do a search on You Tube for 'The Making of Private Pike,' and you'll see who these two are! Also, 'Pictures' is an old school Brit term for movies, and I'm sure there are various others, but give this one a go!


End file.
